Denmark names put on that have occupation as last name

BezoldMarlaEllen

I have done Danish research for 30 yrs or more (50 total years). Today I saw a name that has the person's name and Gaardmd as the last name, or as an "attachment" to the person's last name. In the list of occupations I copied from family search, this word is spelled "gaardmand" and means a farmer/farm owner.

I spoke with 3 missionaries, the 3rd whom was quite rude and stated that names like "Farmer" could be last names, so she thought that I was overgeneralizing and that this was not a problem. However, she had never done research in Denmark and I told her that I would like to speak with a specialist who speaks the language.

Using Family Search: If you push "find" then enter as a last name gaarmand (which is often used as the occupation in old records) and the country "Denmark", you get over 7,000 pages of people. Most were indexed incorrectly or placed on by Family Search missionaries. I realize that sometimes "Peter the shoe maker" or "Peter the elder one" is used in old Danish records. However, I also realize that most of these names are connected to only 1 person, usually a wife or a child when that child was christened. The oldest records do not indicate a last name, too (example: Peder (first name) Nielsen Gaardmand (last name), and if you do FIND and enter with the last name and country only, you get everyone who has placed this word last in the last name field. --and this does not bring up those who might have spelled the word incorrectly.

I suggest that there should be an effort to have the Danish language historians/genealogists look at these names. A lot of them have no connection to other people, and they WILL NOT until someone corrects them so that beginning genealogists and/or Family Search volunteers and/or missionaries can see these records by having the correct last name placed in the last name field and the occupation placed where it belongs. Now, even if you correct the name, it is still "Gaarmand" and does not go to the part of the alphabet where it really belongs. I find a lot of things that the missionaries do not think are "worthy" of speaking with a person who knows something about it when I call, and a lot of my ideas are copied by other researchers who have seen what I have done to avoid problems, so I believe that someone needs to think about this and its value to researchers.

I would also like to have a notation made that I found this on the FIND pages and that it is my suggestion. It would be nice to get some positive, printed recognition, which is something that the missionaries do not give you when speaking to them on the phone. --Marla Ellen Morgan Bezold mbezold1@gmail.com

BezoldMarlaEllen

Sorry to comment, but I wonder where these suggestions go from here and if anyone ever reads them. --Marla Bezold

Gordon Collett

These ideas do get sent to the proper people. Unfortunately, the usual reply for this sort of problem is that there is not a system in place to make large scale correction in indexing batches.

Here is a search that shows this: https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?q.recordCountry=Denmark&q.surname=gaarmand

Checking the first one, the indexing batch it is in is not user editable yet so they can't even be corrected one by one by users.

The above collection appears to be quite an old indexing project, from back in the 1970's or 1980's. This means that the majority of the collection would have gone through the system and ended up in the IGI which was one of the databases used in to create the initial Family Tree database.

So most of these did end up in Family Tree, as you found them with the Find routine: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/find/name?self=%7CGaarmand%7C0%7C0&birth=Denmark%7C%7C0%7C1

FamilySearch does not make corrections in Family Tree. Only us users do that. So all that can be done, is that now that you are aware of this,, is to always make that extra search in Family Tree looking for such and correct it one by one in your family in those situations where it is clearly an occupation and not a last name.

Do take care, however, because some places in Denmark they did use surnames quite early. And often surnames had derivations from places or occupations.

For example, I took a look at the very first person in the Find results. There is a source for him in the 1834 census which leads to this image: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C95N-R34B-8?i=1737&cc=2771431&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AQGW1-DTQ6

This census makes it is very clear that the family halfway down the page did indeed use the the last name of Gaarmann. Even the one year old son is listed as Johan Frederik Holm Gaarmann.